I first remember hearing this one from Lord Andy's 50th Birthday Bash sung by Kiri "The Kiwi" te Kanawa. Then part of it turned up in The Beautiful Game. Now it's back for Love Never Dies. Obviously Lord Andy is pretty keen on it and I don't blame him. It's a lovely broad melody, expansive and romantic but still accessible. This is very much his territory.
It also offers a rare opportuniy to see what three different lyricists did with the same 8 bars of melody. So in chronological order, first up is Don Black with "The Heart is Slow to Learn":
I never loved
As I have loved you
Why is love cruel? I wish I knew
Say what you will
It doesn't matter
Until I die there's only you
Then Ben Elton has a crack with "Our Kind of Love":
Our kind of love
Our kind of passion
Burns with a heat that's hard to bear
It's not a game
No fad or fashion
My kind of love's for those who dare
I must be strong
I must be bolder
Cling to my dream and never tire
Each love denied
Leaves people colder
New love rekindles every fire
I am in love
No-one can blame me
Such is my story and my fate
My kind of love
Will never shame me
My love is stronger than their hate
All kinds of love
Bring us together
Causing the broken hearts to mend
People must love
Now and forever
There's only one love in the end
And finally Glenn Slater, lyricist of Love Never Dies, puts in his t'pennies worth:
Love never dies
Love never falters
Once it has spoken love is yours
Love never fades
Love never alters
Hearts may get broken, love endures
Love never dies
Love will continue
Love keeps on beating when your gone
Love never dies
Once it is in you
Life may be fleeting, love lives on
Now these lyrics were written for different occassions. Black's were for a one-off performance (it's possible he was an early lyricist on the Phantom sequel but I don't really know). As such it's a solid professional job and has by far the best title. But it also has an understandably, given the lack of context, wishy-washy sentiment ("Why is love cruel? I wish I knew").
Elton's, on the other hand, have a more specific context. It's sung by a young Irish girl giddy in love with her new boyfriend and George Best's thighs. As such it's none too convincing. Much better is when it's reprised at the end of Beautiful Game and sung with an angry bitterness as all that youthful hope has slowly turned to dust.
Slater's lyrics are defiantly romantic which suit the feel of the music remarkably well. Of course, for this to be dramatically pertinent, as with Beautiful Game, it should be in a situation where love really has died. That way the defiance is intensified. It'll be interesting to see where the song is placed in the stage show.
In technical terms I would say that the double rhyme scheme (ABAB) in Elton's (passion/fashion) and Slater's (falters/alters) lyrics isn't really necessary. Yes, the tune suggests a similar scheme but the lyrical phrases are so short that an extra rhyme seems unecesssarily neat. Neatness is not what this melody is about. I'm with Black's lyric on this.
On the other hand the repetition is important. The first four notes of the tune with its dramatic ocatave drop forms a musical phrase. This is then repeated up a tone. So the lyric of the first phrase needs to express a thought and then repeat and intensify that thought with the second phrase. That's what Slater does beautifully in his first verse ("Love never dies/Love never falters") and then, when a new bit of tune comes in he changes the pattern ("Once it has spoken, love is yours"). The music and words are working in synch. Unfortunately he breaks the pattern in the second verse. The first and second lines use the repetition ("Love never dies/Love will continue") but then the third line, following the new musical phrase, should start with something new but instead makes another statement beginning with "Love" ("love keeps on beating when you're gone"). The pattern is broken again on the next two lines by producing one sentence over the two repeated musical phrases ("Love never dies/Once it is in you").
This kind of slow, expansive tune is tricky to fit words around. In fact all the lyrical examples have bits where the stresses of the words don't quite follow those of the music (as in "Peo-ple must love" with the "ple" getting the musical emphasis). On top of that the lyricist can't out-do the composer with broad brush emotion. "Until I die there's only you" is an emotional statement that seems overcooked, even slightly hysterical. Music generally conveys this kind of emotion more easily than lyrics.
The point is that lyric-writing is a different way of using words. On a technical level it's not about complex thought, grammar and sentence structure; it's about rhythm, sounds and syllables. That's what makes it a uniquely difficult task. Not only that, but the composer can get multiple verses and, in this case, multiple songs out of the same 8 bars of music. The lyricist has to find different words each time. It's definitely the fag end of the bargain.
It may be a thankless task but fortunately there are at least three brave souls willing to try. God bless 'em, every one.
No comments:
Post a Comment